Descent (video game)

Descent
MS-DOS cover art
Developer(s)	Parallax Software
Publisher(s)	Interplay Productions MacPlay (Mac OS) R-Comp Interactive (RISC OS)
Director(s)	Mike Kulas Matt Toschlog
Producer(s)	Rusty Buchert
Designer(s)	Che-Yuan Wang Mark Dinse Jasen Whiteside
Programmer(s)	John Slagel Rob Huebner
Artist(s)	Adam Pletcher
Writer(s)	Josh White
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Mac, PlayStation, RISC OS
Release	MS-DOS UK: March 3, 1995 NA: March 17, 1995 Macintosh Late 1995 PlayStation JP: January 26, 1996 NA: March 12, 1996 EU: March 1996 RISC OS Late 1998
Genre(s)	First-person shooter, shoot 'em up
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Descent is a first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Productions in 1995 for MS-DOS, and later for Macintosh, PlayStation, and RISC OS. It popularized a subgenre of FPS games employing six degrees of freedom and was the first FPS to feature entirely true-3D graphics. The player is cast as a mercenary hired to eliminate the threat of a mysterious extraterrestrial computer virus infecting off-world mining robots. In a series of mines throughout the Solar System, the protagonist pilots a spaceship and must locate and destroy the mine's power reactor and escape before being caught in the mine's self-destruction, defeating opposing robots along the way. Players can play online and compete in either deathmatches or cooperate to take on the robots.

Descent was a commercial success. Together with its sequel, it sold over 1.1 million units as of 1998 and was critically acclaimed. Commentators and reviewers compared it to Doom and praised its unrestrained range of motion and full 3D graphics. The combination of traditional first-person shooter mechanics with that of a space flight simulator was also well received. Complaints tended to focus on the frequency for the player to become disoriented and the potential to induce motion sickness. The game's success spawned expansion packs and the sequels Descent II (1996) and Descent 3 (1999).